Father. Husband. Geek. Workaholic. US Marine Corps Veteran.

Sam Aaron is a Senior Consultant in the Professional Services Organization at Entelligence — though the title undersells the job. Day to day he operates as an architect, a mentor to newer consultants, and the team’s Lead Lab Engineer/Administrator, building and running the lab environments on VMware Cloud Director.

He’s spent almost two decades in enterprise cloud automation and infrastructure, including almost eleven years at VMware, where he led cloud automation initiatives using VCF Automation (formerly Aria Automation & vRA) and designed scalable, multi-tenant environments with VMware Cloud Director (VCD). During his time at Broadcom, he authored several internal Knowledge Base articles that are still the reference material help-desk teams use to troubleshoot the platform today.

From 2015 to 2025, Sam served as a VMware Hands-On Lab (HOL) Captain and content author — helping build the automation, challenge, and troubleshooting labs featured at VMworld / VMware Explore and in global virtual forums, and educating the wider VMware community along the way. He’s also a recognized contributor to VMware’s certification exam program.

No information provided here was reviewed or endorsed by VMware, Broadcom, Microsoft, or anyone else for that matter. All information here is opinion based on Sam’s personal experience. Use this knowledge at your own risk.

Skills

Scripting & Automation: PowerShell, Python, JavaScript, Bash

VMware Platform: VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF), VMware Cloud Director (VCD), vSphere, vSAN, NSX

Aria Suite: Lifecycle Manager, Automation, Orchestrator

Work Experience

Senior Consultant, Entelligence — May 2025 – Present · Hartford, CT · Remote VMware Cloud Director, Aria Orchestrator, VMware Cloud Foundation

Senior Consultant, Broadcom — Nov 2023 – May 2025 · Atlanta, GA · Remote Architected multi-tenant VMware Cloud Director environments supporting tens of thousands of VMs; built automation with Aria Automation; authored internal knowledge base articles.

Senior Consultant, VMware — May 2014 – Nov 2023 (9 yrs 7 mos) · US Southeast · Remote Architected and deployed Cloud Management Platform solutions on vRealize/Aria Suite; led vSphere upgrade consulting; served as VMware Hands-On Lab Captain.

Education

Computer Specialist Diploma, Chattahoochee Technical College — 1998 – 2003

Microcomputer Specialist, Appalachian Technical College — 1998 · President’s List

Certifications

• VMware Certified Professional – VMware Cloud Foundation Architect 2024 — 11/14/2024
• VMware Certified Implementation Expert 7 – Cloud Management & Automation — 09/05/2020
• VMware Certified Professional – VMware Cloud Foundation Administrator — 01/2026
• VMware Certified Advanced Professional – Cloud Management and Automation Design 2020 — 09/2020
• Certification Subject Matter Expert – Cloud Management and Automation 2019 — 07/2019
• VMware Certified Professional – Cloud Management and Automation 2019 — 07/2019
• VMware Certified Professional – Data Center Virtualization 2019 — 01/2019
• VMware Education Champion – Level One — 03/2019

Highlights shown above — full certification history (25 credentials dating back to 2011) is on LinkedIn.

Outside of Work

When he’s not deep in a cloud console, Sam is usually building something with his hands: wiring up 3D-printed Star Wars droids into full animatronics, painting miniatures and models, assembling toys and action figures, or running the table for a Dungeons & Dragons campaign.

Launched in April 2010, micronauts is Sam’s blog and online presence — a running log of virtualization knowledge, fixes, and trivia, shared with the community one post at a time.

Contact

Connecticut, US · sam.aaron@micronauts.us · GitHub · LinkedIn